The Abcasians did not respond, but after a long silence one or two of them resumed imitating Abdul’s melodies, as if to say those were good and acceptable, not the others. In this they displayed, Abdul observed, a tenderness of feeling and an ability to tell good music from bad.
As the only one authorized to “speak” with the Abcasians, Abdul felt reborn. We are in the reign of tenderness, he said, and therefore close to my goal. Let’s move on. No, Boidi replied, fascinated, why don’t we stay here? Is there perhaps any place more beautiful in the world than this, where, even if something ugly exists, you don’t see it?
Baudolino also thought that, after he had seen so many things in the vast world, those long days spent in darkness had reconciled him to himself. In the darkness he returned to his memories, he thought of his boyhood, of his father, his mother, of Colandrina so sweet and unhappy. One evening (was it evening? Yes, because the Abcasians were silent, sleeping), unable to get to sleep, he moved, touching the tree’s fronds with his hands, as if he were seeking something. Suddenly he found a fruit, soft to the touch and very aromatic. He picked it and bit into it, and he felt invaded by a sudden languor; he no longer knew if he was dreaming or awake.
All at once he saw, or felt close to him as if he saw her, Colandrina. “Baudolino, Baudolino,” she called him with an adolescent voice, “don’t stop, even if here everything seems beautiful. You must reach the kingdom of that Priest you told me about and give him that cup; otherwise who will make a duke of our Baudolinetto Colandrinuccio? Make me happy. Things
are not bad here, but I miss you so.”
“Colandrina, Colandrina,” Baudolino cried, or thought he cried, “be quiet: You are a ghost, a trick, the fruit of that fruit! The dead do not return!”
“Generally not,” Colandrina replied, “but I kept insisting. I said: You gave me only one season with my man, only a taste. Do me this holy favor, if you have a heart. I’m fine here, and I see the Blessed Virgin and all the saints, but I miss the caresses of my Baudolino that gave me goose bumps. They’ve granted me very little time, just to give you a kiss. Baudolino, don’t stop along the way with the women of those places, who maybe have nasty diseases that I don’t even know of. Put your foot in the road and go towards the sun.”
She disappeared, as Baudolino felt a soft touch on his cheek. He stirred from his doze, had peaceful dreams. The next day he told his companions that they had to go on.
After many more days they perceived a glimmer, a milky glow. Again the darkness was being transformed into the gray of a thick and uniform brume. They realized that the Abcasians, who were accompanying them, had stopped, and were bidding them farewell with their piping. They heard them standing at the edge of a clearing, at the confines of that light that the Abcasians surely feared, as if they were waving their hands, and from the softness of their sounds it was clear they were smiling.
They passed through the fog and saw once more the light of the sun. They were dazzled, and Abdul was again shaken by feverish trembling.
They thought that after the test of Abcasia they would enter the desired lands, but they had to revise that idea.
Immediately, above their heads, birds with human faces were darting and shouting: “On what soil are you treading? Go back! You cannot violate the land of the Blest! Go back and tread the land that was given you!” The Poet said this was witchcraft, perhaps one of the ways the land of the Priest was protected, and he convinced them to go on.
After a few days’ march over a field of stones without a blade of grass, they saw three animals coming towards them. One was surely a cat, with an arched back, bristling fur, and eyes like two firebrands. Another had a lion’s head, roaring, a goat’s body, and the behind of a dragon, but from the goatlike back a second head rose, horned and bleating. The tail was a
hissing serpent, thrust forward to threaten the travelers. The third had a lion’s body, a scorpion’s tail, and an almost human head, with shapely nose and yawning mouth, in which they could discern, above and below, a triple row of teeth, sharp as blades.
The animal that most worried them was the cat, notoriously the messenger of Satan and the domestic ally of necromancers. You can defend yourself against any monster, but not against this one, who, before you can draw your sword, springs on your face and scratches your eyes. Solomon muttered that nothing good could be expected of an animal that the Book of Books had never mentioned. Boron said that the second animal was surely a chimera, the only one that, if the vacuum existed, could fly buzzing inside it and suck out the thoughts of living beings.
The third animal left no room for doubt, and Baudolino recognized it as a manticore, not unlike the leucrotta, an animal about which some time ago ( how long was it now?) he had written to Beatrice.
The three monsters advanced towards them: the cat with agile feline steps, the other two with equal determination, but a bit slower, thanks to the difficulty that a triform animal has in adapting to the movement of its various composition.
The first to take the initiative was Aleramo Scaccabarozzi known as Bonehead, who now was never separated from his bow. He fired an arrow right in the center of the cat’s head, and the animal sprawled lifeless. At this sight, the chimera made a leap forward. Bravely, Cuttica of Quargnento, shouting that at home he had been able to reduce enamored bulls to mild behavior, stepped forward to stab the monster, but it made a leap, fell upon him, and was tearing him with its leonine maw when the Poet, Baudolino, and Colandrino rushed to subdue the beast with slashes of their swords until it let go and sank to the ground.
Meanwhile the manticore attacked. It was confronted by Boron, Kyot, Boidi, and Porcelli, while Solomon hurled stones at it, muttering curses in his holy language. Ardzrouni retreated, black also with terror, and Abdul lay curled up, seized by more intense tremors. The beast seemed to consider the situation with a canniness both human and bestial. Surprisingly agile, it ducked those facing it and, before they could inflict a wound, it flung itself on Abdul, unable to defend himself. With its tripled teeth it bit his shoulder, nor did it let go when the others rushed to free their comrade.
It howled beneath the blows of their swords, but firmly clenched Abdul’s body, which spurted blood from a spreading wound. Finally the monster could no longer survive the blows inflicted by the four enraged adversaries, and with a horrible rattle it died. But it was hard work opening its jaws and freeing Abdul from their grip.
At the end of that battle, Cuttica had a wounded arm, but Solomon was treating him with an unguent of his, saying the wound would not be serious. Abdul, on the contrary, was moaning faintly, losing much blood. “Bandage him,” Baudolino said. “Weak as he was already, he mustn’t go on bleeding!” They all tried to stanch the flow, using their clothes to stop the wound, but the manticore had bitten deep into his limbs, reaching the heart.
Abdul was delirious. He murmured that his princess must be very near and he couldn’t die right at this very moment. He asked them to stand him on his feet, and they had to restrain him because it was clear that the monster had injected some unknown poison into his flesh.
Believing in his own deceit, Ardzrouni had taken from Abdul’s sack the Baptist head, broken the seal, removed the skull from the reliquary, and placed it in Abdul’s hands. “Pray,” he said, “pray for your salvation.”
“Imbecile,” the Poet said to him scornfully. “First of all, he can’t hear you, and, second, that head was God knows whose, and you stole it from some infidel graveyard.”
“Any relic can revive the spirit of a dying man,” Ardzrouni said.
In the late afternoon Abdul could no longer see, and he asked if they were again in the forest of Abcasia. Realizing that the supreme moment was coming, Baudolino made up his mind and—as usual out of good heartedness told another lie.
“Abdul,” he said, “now you are at the peak of your desires. You have arrived at the place you yearned for, you had only to pass the test of the manticore. Here, you see, your lady is before you. As she learned of your ill-starred love, from the farthest reaches of the earth where she lives, she has hastened to you, thrilled and moved by your devotion.”
“No,” Abdul gasped, “it’s not possible. She comes to me, and I do not go to her? How can I survive such bounty? Tell her to wait. Raise me, please, that I may go and pay her homage….”
“Be calm, my friend; if she has so decided, you must bow to her will. Here, open
